


Whumptober Day 2- Explosion

by InternetCannibal



Series: Whumptober/Whumpvember 2019 [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Burns, Explosion, Other, Stangst, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 02:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21028652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InternetCannibal/pseuds/InternetCannibal
Summary: The portal wasn’t supposed to explode when he shut it down. He’d won, he’d made it home.  Against all odds, he’d reunited with his brother, and found out that he was an uncle. His future had never been brighter, even with the looming threat of Bill Cipher still out there.It wasn’t supposed to end like this.





	Whumptober Day 2- Explosion

When Stan had offered to help him shut down and tear down the portal, Ford had said no. A polite and civil response, considering how they’d...reunited. His jaw still smarted where Stanley had struck him, and the thought of having to work side by side with him so soon after, it had been unappealing.

Besides, the portal was Ford’s problem now, and the moment they had dealt with the government agents swarming his house, he had retreated to the basement again with a roiling resentment in his chest. Stan hadn’t just shoved him into that portal, he had stolen his house, his name, and soiled it all with a bad reputation.  
The real Stanford Pines was nothing like the identity Stanley had commandeered for 30 years, picking some truth and mashing it together with lies like one of the god awful attractions he’d seen upstairs. What even was a Sascrotch? It made no sense!

Ford tried to put his anger out of his head, set it aside at least until he was done dismantling the portal that had caused him so much trouble. Then, and only then, would he confront his feelings on what had happened while he had been gone.  
As soon as the coast was clear he began the shutdown procedure-which, funnily enough only began with turning the keys and pressing the button in the middle of the large, cavernous room. There were large cylinders full of toxic chemicals to be brought to room temperature and then disposed of, pressure and heat to be gauged, everything had to be at a complete standstill before he even approached it to take it apart, but it had been his magnum opus ...not to mention his greatest folly— and so, as the roar and crackle of the portal starts to quiet, and the swirling white plasma of the vortex within starts to shrink, he s—-far behind the yellow line, but still in the room and watches it go. He lets his feelings about it die too. He had learned his lesson about interdimensional travel 30 years too late.  
The portal’s noises slow to a whine, becoming a small dark ball of matter that pulsed and flashed with multicolors, suspended in the middle—and just as Ford realized exactly what had been created with his machine, everything went horribly wrong. 

The ball of energy exploded outwards in a corona of heat and light. It blinded him and then a millisecond later deafened him too, and then it took him off his feet and slammed him violently into the opposite wall. There was light, then searing pain, and finally, nothing.  
—

Stanley Pines was in the gift shop of the shack taking inventory with Soos when the whole building suddenly shook from the impact of something massive under their feet. He grabbed onto the counter and swore as Soos almost fell over, grabbing a photo stand to remain upright. “Whoa, dude!”  
Upstairs, Dipper and Mabel cry out in alarm and come rushing to the top of the stairs. Mabel is distraught and clinging to Dipper with wide eyes. “What’s happening? What’s happening!?”  
And then, just as soon as the rumbling had started, it stops.

Stan wasn’t an idiot, no matter how much it paid to pretend otherwise sometimes. Something had clearly happened in the basement. But his first priority is to his charges.  
He tests the floor with his foot, then moves to the doorway. “Come on down, you two, and wait with Soos outside, okay?”  
He wasn’t worried, but he spoke with authority. As soon as Mabel and Dipper were back on the main floor, Soos leads them outside, a little ways away from the shack, trying to distract them from the shock.  
Stan crosses the floor to call out after them. “I’m going to check on Stanford!” And then he moves carefully towards the vending machine. Its still operational, so he inputs the code and pulls it open, stepping inside.  
The stairs leading down to the elevator are intact, and the elevator is also functional. He presses the button.  
What the hell had Ford done down there anyway? That was one hell of an earthquake.  
The metal grille slides open and he steps inside, starting his descent.  
Whatever it was, he’s going to have words with his twin.  
He watches the floors tick by.   
It probably wasn’t anything even bad, and Ford was going to be waiting outside the elevator to shoo him back upstairs and tell him its nothing to worry about, or worse, nothing he’d be able to understand. That smarted! He understood enough of his brother’s mumbo jumbo and science to get the portal up and running again, didn’t he? He wasn’t an idiot!  
He grits his teeth as the elevator slows to a stop on the third floor, and he’s ready to get right into it, but as the door opens and admits a massive cloud of choking black smoke, he starts to get concerned. “Ford?”

With one arm over his mouth and nose he steps into the control room, coughing. The glass windows are blown out, all the tanks full of chemicals have been smashed, there’s smoke and fire everywhere.  
Stan’s concern ramps up into full blown panic. “Stanford!?”  
He coughs harder, skirting the glass shards and pushing through into the main room. The portal had been shredded in the explosion, chunks of twisted metal still glowing red with heat scattered all over the floor. One piece is embedded in the rock wall.  
There’s no sign of Ford.  
Stan’s heart thuds hard. “STANFORD WHERE ARE YOU!?”

Ford is brought back to awareness by the distant sound of Stan’s voice. He opens his eyes and lets out a wheeze, tasting ash and blood. His ears are bleeding, but somehow, he can still hear. Stan is calling him, and sounding increasingly more and more frantic. He tries to move, but a large chunk of sizzling metal is pinning him down at the legs, and its blocking him from Stan’s sight.  
He tries to call out, but his throat feels scorched and all that comes out is a shaky and rough groan.  
Miraculously though, Stan hears it.

He lets out a yell and then runs forwards and starts dragging the chunk of metal frame off of him. “I’m here, Ford, I’ve got you!”  
The heat of the metal burns his hands, but he keeps straining, and then manages to drag it up and off his twin, letting it clatter to the floor loudly and then he drops to his knees next to Ford’s side.  
His heart seizes, when he sees the state he’s in, and it takes all his strength not to scream.  
Ford’s clothes have been mostly eaten right off of him in patches, and where skin shows through its black and red, serious burns covering most of his body. But he’s alive, and for that, Stan could almost cry.  
Ford’s eyes open, dull brown, glazed with shock and pain. “I...I can’t feel my body,” he rasps out, and Stan’s heart drops again. “Don’t try to move, I’m going to get you out of here.” 

Ford just shakes his head and then lifts his left arm, somehow he can still command it, and grips onto the front of Stan’s shirt to drag him close. “No time.”  
His voice sounds awful and foreign and not at all like Ford and Stan hates it, wants to hush him so he can save his strength, but also desperate to hear what he has to say. “Pointdexter, don’t you dare talk like that,” he growls, but Ford keeps holding on and shaking his head limply. “You...” he chokes out, struggling hard.  
Stan grabs his hand and holds it tightly. “Don’t do this, not like this!”  
Ford gives his fingers a squeeze, eyes sliding shut. “....Thank....you...”  
And then his hand goes limp.

Stan lets out a cry that’s one part sorrow and one part rage, and then he staggers upright, hoisting Ford’s unconscious body into his arms. “I’m not goig to lose you, you sonofabitch. Not again!”

He navigates the burning room and somehow makes it to the elevator without collapsing from smoke inhalation. It had been trickling up the floors slowly, but he doesn’t care, riding the elevator up to the main floor. The vending machine is still hanging ajar, so he bellows for Soos. “SOOS, GIVE ME A HAND! STANFORD’S HURT REAL BAD!!”

Time stopped working, Stan lost chunks of it but he remembers Soos running in, followed by Wendy, when did she get there, and then he was sitting on the porch with a blanket wrapped around him and a mug of coffee in his shaking hands, tears wet on his sooty face, surrounded by people he didn’t even notice, and then there were ambulance sirens and then Ford was gone. They took him away.   
He had lost his brother again, regardless.


End file.
